


crucibles

by zombeesknees



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 00:32:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17131628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombeesknees/pseuds/zombeesknees
Summary: Budapest and the aftermath. She's the close quarters. He's the long shot. They have both been unmade and remade before. This is what being partners means. | Written many moons ago on LJ, set pre-The Avengers.





	crucibles

There’s an armored truck coming towards them. A hatch on the roof swings open to reveal a large man in black with an even larger gun. He’s sighting at her, finger on the trigger, and Clint lets the bolt fly before the chemical rush of fear has a chance to hit his bloodstream. The man topples over, the gun making more noise than the body as it clatters against the roof. And before the driver properly grasps the fact that the gunner has been taken out, Clint’s notched the second arrow to his bow.

“ _Do svidaniya_ ,” he murmurs as the fletching slides between his gloved fingers. The arrow hits precisely where he wanted it, shattering the glass of the windshield as it buries itself in the neck of the driver. A blink, and the explosive tip goes off—there’s shrapnel and smoke everywhere, and he dives behind a burned-out car as a huge chunk of door whizzes past.

“Must you always make such a mess?” she demands, crouched down beside him. Her hands are quick, precise, as she reloads her gun. There’s glass in her hair, blood on her face, and she’s smiling. Natasha is never as beautiful as right now, in the midst of chaos and battle, their heartbeats millimeters shy of stopping. 

“Seems to me you leave as many bodies strewn about as I do,” he counters. 

“Finesse, Barton,” she says calmly as a bullet whistles past her cheek. “It’s a point of pride.”

She stands suddenly, spinning on her heel, and her fist strikes out with a blue flash of electricity. The man she hits spasms for four, five seconds as the voltage courses through his body before grounding itself out through a crack in his shoe.

Natasha doesn’t linger over a punch well placed, a job well done, because the street is still a war zone and this man has plenty of comrades left in need of the special attentions of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s elite agents. This is a mission, after all, and it’s far from accomplished.

But Clint spares a second, maybe two, to admire her poise in the midst of it. Watching Tasha fight is like watching a classical ballet. An artist in their element.

Then he picks off the stray coming round the corner, and the sniper on the roof down the street, before sprinting to catch up.

****

It’s seven hours later, and while several neighborhoods in Budapest look like something out of a Michael Bay picture, at least the threat has been contained. Fury’s been debriefed. The support personnel are already on their way back to base.

And they’re in a hotel room, assessing the damage.

“Cracked rib,” she says dispassionately, fingers probing along her side just beneath the edge of her bra. Her skin is a patchwork of black, blue, green, purple, brown — bruise blossoms spread across what he knows is usually a freckled, soft white expanse. The top half of her now unzipped suit hangs down around her waist, the sleeves dangling past her belt.

He unbuckles his vambrace and tosses it onto the table beside his quiver. It’s difficult to unfasten his reinforced Kevlar vest with only one hand, but his left arm still feels numb from the elbow down—that was one hell of a hit the bastard managed to get in before he garroted him with his bowstring. With a wince and a cut-off hiss of pain, he manages to pull his shirt up over his head. The fabric sticks at his shoulder, the blood there half-dried and caking, and he can feel the wound reopening fully when the warm trickle runs down his arm.

“Stitches?” she says, not really a question. He nods. “On it.”

He sinks down onto the end of the bed; she’s got the needle already in hand, the spool of black thread recovered from one of the little packs at her belt. 

“Tiny stitches this time,” he says. “That last one left a helluva scar.”

“Thought you liked scars,” she replies, knotting the thread and getting straight to work. There’s a towel in her hand he never noticed her picking up—she uses it to wipe away the blood between stitches—and he blinks rapidly as his vision swims. He’s more tired than he thought; but then that last explosion did come as a surprising grand finale. 

“Never said that,” he says.

“I inferred.”

“Yeah?”

“You seem to enjoy my company, don’t you?”

“Tasha.”

He doesn’t say anything else, because it’s unnecessary. Her lips quirk in an aborted half-smile, so briefly it could have been a trick of his addled mind, but he knows better. Knows that if Natasha sees herself as anything, it’s as a knife, a bullet, the bitter burn of poison. She’s scarred, absolutely, but she’s not _a_ scar. Subtleties, as she has so often told him. She may have been stitched together, just as surely as she’s stitching him up with needle and thread, but she’s still her own. A woman who makes her choices resolutely and moves past regret to a place of chilly finality. 

But he likes that, admires that, because it’s a force of will he understands. When the crucible melts you down, dissolves you, it’s up to you to mold everything back together. You can’t rely—you can’t _allow_ —another to reshape you, because how could a person in their line of work ever live with the weight of something like that? The knowledge that someone else’s fingerprints were pressed into the steel of their very being?

She ties off the thread, trims the end with a tiny dagger he’s seen her put through the eye socket of a man from twenty feet away. And behind the calm mask she so often assumes, he sees the satisfaction in her green eyes. A mission accomplished, a job well done, and such minor injuries to account for.

Of course, to anyone else looking at the pair of them this was a costly price to have paid. She looks like someone’s personal punching bag. Her bottom lip is split and swollen, and there’s a cut across her temple she’s already patched together with medical glue and white tape. And he’ll be one-armed for several hours to come, and have to take care when stretching his bow for a day or two. The shoulder required fifteen stitches, and he can feel the black eye darkening and swelling.

“Want some bourbon for the pain?” she asks.

“No need. Nice work today, Ms. Romanov,” he says with a grin. “I especially liked that moment you swung around the lamppost to kick that guy in the face. The look of surprise he had just before his neck crunched… Priceless.”

“And that was a nice trick shot you pulled, ricocheting off the helmet.”

“It’s all geometry, really.”

“You should give me some pointers, next training session.”

“Be my pleasure. Just so long as you promise to show me that tricky twist, flip, and roll you used when that tank had us pinned.”

“If you want. We’ve got six hours before Fury expects us to code in at the Helicarrier.”

“We should get some sleep.”

“Too wired to sleep.”

“You, too?”

“And too sore for sparring.”

“Agreed.”

She has him pinned against the bed before the word can even die in his mouth. When he catches his breath, he only smiles as she unfastens her belt and pulls the rest of the zipper down. “With my rib and your arm—” she begins. 

“I’ve nothing against a lady topping. You know that.”

“Always the gentleman.”

And no matter how many times he admires those thighs when they’re taking an enemy to the ground, he _truly_ appreciates them when she applies them to taking him down. Being with Natasha Romanov is like living and dying at the same time — he's fully aware that she can kill him in a heartbeat even when she moans his name — and the adrenaline makes his brain buzz. He supposes he’s more than a little addicted to her — she’s the best rush an adventure junkie can wish for, with the added bonus of being very, very tangible. There’s little of the hypothetical with her; her promises she keeps, and the only time she teases is with a target.

Even if she’s the knife, the bullet, Clint knows he’s no target. Not to her. He knew that the day he brought her into S.H.I.E.L.D., the day he offered to help her balance the books. When someone makes you a deal like that, you either double-cross them in the first week or you’re partners to the end. 

It’s been four years.

He looks up into her face as she rocks forward, knees digging into the mattress, thighs tight against his hips, and he wonders if she ever truly lets her guard down. Even now, caught in the push and pull, the heady heat of desire, there’s something shuttered and sheathed about her. Her control is a constant marvel. He _knows_ there’s pain in the pleasure, knows from the patchwork of bruises and the way she leans to the left to off-set the aching ribs. Knows it as keenly as he knows his own. And yet there’s no sign of it in her face, so intent and focused. 

This woman — this is his partner. The one who has his back, the one he’d follow into any kind of hell. Because she’s the best at what she does, and she makes him better just be being there. A constant marvel, a source of inspiration and admiration, an artist with her body and an expert with her guns. 

And sometimes when things get messy, bloody, brutal, the fact that they’re members of S.H.I.E.L.D. hardly matters. Because in those moments S.H.I.E.L.D. is just a dream, a fairy tale, a castle in the sky while they’re down in the thick of it, in the shit and sweat and tears, and in those moments — those moments — the only thing that counts is that you can trust the one you’re with. The one who went through the fire with you, who came out on the other side burnt and scarred but still beating, uncowed by the crucible.

She's the close quarters. He's the long shot. They're both targets in a way, but never to one other. 

“Natasha,” he says quietly, good hand against her stomach, and she looks at him. Meets his eyes steadily. 

“Clint.”

He looks for words, tries to catch them on his tongue, but then he remembers. With her, there’s no need for words. She knows the truth from the lies, knows him like the grip of her favorite gun, and why is he wasting time with talking? They are what they are, and stories are just for children.

He shifts beneath her, a vital inch or two, and can tell that’s exactly what she needs. She settles more comfortably, the ache in her ribs subsiding, and in no time they’re in perfect rhythm. The endorphins and serotonin take over, and then the precipice— 

Best kind of painkiller there is, really. Who needs bourbon when you have the Black Widow?


End file.
